Loop unrolling

Clannad ~After Story~ Episode 16: Nagisa passes Tomoya on his LEFT

The first thing I did after finishing Clannad ~After Story~ was to go searching for that timeline diagram that I forgot to bookmark way, way back.

Was it necessary? Not at all, but it's nice to have some external information in order to frame the ending as something resembling coherency.

Certainly it's critical that you give yourself to the emotional roller coaster in order to ride it, but now that the ride's over, I want off lest I be subjected to 4+ g's over and over. Comprehension is closure, in a sense. And when there's nothing there, I'm content to know at least that much.

Clannad ~After Story~ Episode 22: Nagisa passes Tomoya on his RIGHT

I have never played a visual novel, but I've read more Choose Your Own Adventure books than I care to admit. As silly as they were, they would have been even sillier had the various paths been linearized, and not nearly as interesting to nine year olds.

There are some things that can be done, but short of inserting numerous resets, the end result is going to involve a steamroller. This is most obvious, at times painfully so, in Air (2005) and Kanon (2006), neither of which got far from the feeling that they came about via a 20 ton mass.

Clannad (2007), too, if you view the first season in isolation. But ~After Story~ wouldn't be ~After Story~ without the Clannad moniker preceding it. Where Clannad as a whole succeeds is in the integration of its cast. Characters pop up just often enough to do or say something meaningful, showing us — and each other — that they are more than token acquaintances.

It's because the source is about depending on the kindness of friends and family that it steamrolls unrolls better than its predecessors, which is to say, less one-arc stands. But what separates it from most other high school rom-sitcoms is that the "Where are they now?" aspect is not relegated to the finale, as some fanciful backdrop for credits and an extended ED.

So when it comes to time frame, scope and premise, you could do worse than a game of life.

Appendix

  • The title screens acted as a loop counter, provided you were paying attention. I wasn't.
  • In ~After Story~ Episode 16, Nagisa passes Tomoya on his left. In Episode 22, she passes on his right. Significant?
  • Fuuko's role notwithstanding, the diagram is a lot easier to accept than this theory, which is good because that place is difficult to navigate, let alone read.
  • I guess this entry sort of mirrors this one.